


Everybody Wants a New Romance

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Saints Row
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 11:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2849141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the best gift is some friendly company, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everybody Wants a New Romance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FireEye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/gifts).



> Hey, FireEye! This was meant to be your Yuletide fic proper, but unfortunately I'm an idiot and fucked up the dates. You'll have had a pinch hit by now, but hopefully better late than never, right? I hope it's something!
> 
> Notes: non-explicit sex while participants are drunk, but not so drunk as to make anyone unaware of what they're doing. All the rampant profanity, crude jokes, and casual violence of the setting (didn't dwell on the last, though.)

Cass had just finished painting a really badass skull on her thumbnail when the phone rang.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Hey, boss,” Johnny said, staticky over the line, “gimme some backup? I’m at On Thin Ice in Chinatown.”

“Huh.” Cass frowned, tilting her head. There wasn’t anything but Johnny’s voice and static on the line; no shouting, no shooting, no sobbing, and no shit blowing up. “What the hell do you need backup for?”

“Look, will you just get here?” Johnny snapped, and hung up. Cass sighed.

“Fucking drama queen,” she told the phone, and headed for the elevator, holding her thumb carefully in the air.

It was a bright day, November sunshine washing over all of Stilwater’s gray and brown. This place needed some more color in it, some more purple sprayed across the ground. Cass passed some of her Saints headed the other way, three girls leaning out the side of a convertible; she waved, and two waved back, while the third goggled at her in awe. _Now that’s what I’m talking about._

There was a spectacularly un-Gatlike amount of carnage outside On Thin Ice; Cass parked, frowning, and hurried on in. Gat was over by a display case, still not shooting anybody; the guy behind the counter was squinting at him suspiciously, though.

“Hey,” Cass said, digging out her phone with one hand and her wallet with the other. Yup, she had enough cash to toss on the counter; she punctuated it with a tap of her knife next to the bills. The shopkeeper stared at her, turning white. “Here’s your money. I’m gonna own this place by dinnertime, so you can start calling me Boss right now. First rule of business: quit looking at my friend over there. You didn’t see him, you didn’t recognize me, you don’t know shit, you go that?”

The man blinked at her, readjusting his nose. “I don’t think that’s how buying property works.”

“I got Legal Lee on speed dial, he’s gonna make it work,” she retorted. “Look at it this way, I’ll shoot up anyone who shoots you up and I don’t give a shit how you run this place. You got a good deal.”

The man shrugged, pocketing her money, and started pointedly eyeballing the ceiling. Cass jogged over to Johnny, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“What, you can’t pay a guy off on your own?”

“What? Oh, that guy’s a pussy, he wasn’t gonna do anything,” Johnny said absently, drumming his fingers against the glass. “Look, it’s Aisha’s and my anniversary next week, the fuck should I get her.”

“I’m supposed to know?” Cass asked, leaning back against the case. “Hey, check out that ring, you could fuck someone up pretty good with that.”

“Eesh don’t need a ring to fuck shit up,” Johnny said, but he lingered on the diamond bands. “Pretty, though.”

“You thinking like… a _ring_ kind of ring?” Cass asked him quietly, looking at one of them – a good-sized stone set in a ring carved with little hearts linked together. “Like propose to her and shit?”

Johnny snorted. “Yeah, sure, because it’s real easy for a fugitive to marry a dead woman. Great thinking, boss.”

“So bribe a priest,” Cass suggested. “I know a guy.”

“Yeah, I know a guy too, we know the same damn guy,” Johnny said, drifting over towards the necklaces. “Sneak some drunk asshole in the back door and have him mumble at the two of us for an hour and call that a wedding? Not for Eesh.”

“We could sober him up first,” Cass suggested. Johnny looked at her, raising his eyebrows over his glasses. “All right, or that’s not the point.”

“Yeah.” Johnny squinted at the case. “This thing just looks like a fucking rock.”

“They all like look rocks. They’re rocks.”

“Yeah, but this doesn’t even look like a fancy rock. Check it out.”

Cass sighed, following him. “Shit, you’re right.”

“See? A damned ugly rock.” Johnny shrugged, moving on. Cass paused, pushing her tongue against the inside of her teeth.

“If it weren’t for all that shit,” she said. “Would you ask her to marry you?”

“Yeah, course,” Johnny said, squinting at the display. “This thing look like a cock and balls to you?”

“That’s a five-thousand-dollar designer necklace,” the cashier put in, having apparently stopped studying the ceiling.

“He’s right,” Cass said, leaning over Johnny’s shoulder. “Looks like a cock and balls.” The cashier sighed.

“So not a necklace,” Johnny said, moving on. “Bracelet?”

“Where’s she gonna wear it, just around the house?” Cass asked, squinting at a weird brooch thing. Johnny shrugged.

“I dunno, I guess. She can’t really go anywhere else. Gets to her, sometimes,” he added, softly, and moved on. Cass pushed herself off the counter and then froze, eyes wide.

“Johnny.”

“Yeah, what’s up?” He blinked at her.

“I just had a totally awesome idea.” She grinned at him. “Just call me wingman of the year.”

**

“Johnny Gat, where the hell did you get a limo?” Aisha asked, still half-hidden inside the doorframe.

“Parking lot over by Huntersfield,” Johnny said, shrugging. “Don’t worry, we changed the plates.”

“You better have, I don’t want a car chase halfway through my date,” she said, but she was smiling. “How do I look?”

“Pretty,” Johnny said, a little gruffly, and leaned up to kiss her cheek. She had a simple white dress on, graceful and short, and Johnny took her hand as they made their way down to the road.

“Who’s driving this thing?” she asked, as Johnny opened the door. Cas grinned, twisting around in her seat to wave.

“Your, uh, ride, ma’am,” she said, tugging at her hat. Aisha blinked once, twice, and burst out laughing.

“Now where the hell did you get that outfit?” she asked.

“Let’s Pretend, c’mon,” Cass said, grinning. She didn’t make too convincing a chauffeur, between the double-pierced eyebrow and the tattoos dancing along the side of her neck and the backs of her hands, but it’s the thought that counts, right? “It took a little work, but hey, I got them to do it.”

“Well, you look cute,” Aisha said, settling herself onto the seat. Johnny slid in beside her, tugging at his tie. “So, either of you going to tell me where you’re taking me yet?”

“Hm… nah,” Johnny said, kicking back. Aisha snorted.

“This had better end well, Johnny,” she said, taking his hand.

“It will, it will!” he protested. She leaned against his shoulder, and he fell silent, smoothing a tiny tendril of her hair away from her face. His fingers lingered on her forehead, as tender and careful as if she were the blade of a thousand-dollar knife, and she smiled.

“Cass, you wanna drive any time?” Johnny asked, glancing up. “And don’t crash into shit.”

“Come on, like I crash into shit,” Cass said, turning the ignition.

“How many times have you taken out my mailbox now?” Aisha asked, smiling.

“I’m just gonna do this,” Cass said, having spotted the partition button, and reached for it.

“Oh, c’mon, you can’t just –” Johnny started, and then the partition whooshed shut.

It was really only another couple minutes to the church – okay, Cass maybe scraped a couple cars en route, but they were in the fucking way – and she pulled up to the parking lot with no cool spinning or anything, then dropped the partition again.

“Is this your new gang clubhouse?” Aisha asked. “How sure are you that you trust everyone in that crew of yours, Johnny?”

“Aw, c’mon, Aish, trust me,” Johnny complained, handing her out of the car.

“All right, but I better not have gotten dressed up to crawl around some old cellars,” she said. “This dress ain’t easy to clean.”

“Nah, we’ve cleaned the place up,” Cass said, stepping out of the car. She cleared her throat, sweeping a hand dramatically towards the elevator entrance. “Right this way, ma’am…”

“What, no sir?” Johnny asked, leading her forward. Cass flipped him off; Aisha laughed.

“You tell him, Cass,” she said, and hit the elevator button. Cass brought up the rear.

“Well,” Aisha said, when the elevator door slid open. “You weren’t kidding about cleaning this place up. This your club? I didn’t realize it was _this_ nice.” She paused, looking around. “Where the hell is everyone?”

“We cleared the place out for the night,” Johnny said, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Happy anniversary, babe.”

“Well.” Aisha smiled, and kissed him back. “This is pretty great.”

“There’s kind of a picnic over there,” Cass said, pointing over to the stack of white boxes. “We paid a caterer. The radio’s over there,” she indicated, “there’s plenty of booze, and, uh, I put clean sheets on the bed if you want. Gimme a call when you wanna get home, or snag one of the other cars, or whatever the fuck.”

“Wait, you’re taking off?” Johnny asked, glancing up. Cass blinked.

“It’s your anniversary, man. Course I am.”

“Nah, stick around!” Aisha said. “I can see him any old time.” She elbowed Johnny in the ribs; he doubled over, groaning.

“ _Eesh._ ”

“Well, sure, then,” Cass said, and swung onto the couch. “Mind if I take off the hat?”

“Nah,” Aisha said, “I like the hat.”

**

“So,” Aisha said, hours later, “this place really need that many stripper poles?”

“ _Hell_ yeah it needed this many stripper poles,” Cass said, sprawling out across the couch. Aisha was curled up against Johnny’s side, her lipstick smudged on the corner of his mouth. The catering boxes were emptied, by now, fancy sandwiches and champagne demolished. Johnny’s hair was less artfully arranged, in spite of his outrageous amount of gel, and Cass was down to her shirtsleeves and tie, although she’d been ordered to retain the hat. There was a tiny bit of cheesecake smudged on Aisha’s nose; Cass had been wondering whether to point that out, but, well, it was cute as fuck, and if Johnny wasn’t saying shit then she wasn’t.

“How many strippers can you even watch at once?” Aisha wanted to know. “Oh, don’t even tell me you don’t watch the strippers, Johnny Gat,” she added, as he opened his mouth. “I don’t give a shit, I look at folks too.”

“This way you can dance on one and watch the people on the others,” Cass said, waving at the poles. Aisha stopped, raising her eyebrows.

“You poledance, now? Where the hell’d you learn that?”

“Natural talent,” Cass said, puffing out her chest enough to strain the buttons of her shirt. Johnny snorted.

“Now this I gotta see,” he said. Aisha grinned.

“Yeah, I gotta say the same thing,” she said. “Want me to change the station?”

“Let’s see what comes on – oh, shit,” Cass said, as the guitar started. She bounded off the couch, beaming. “I can dance to this, folks, get ready for the show of your _lives._ ”

 _Everyone’s watching to see what you will do,_ the radio blared, and Cass loosened her tie, shot finger-guns at her two best friends, and wrapped her hands around the pole.

Three minutes later, Johnny was laughing hard enough to shake the rafters and Aisha was wiping tears of hysteria away, half doubled over. Cass, down to her underwear, tie, and hat, shimmied in front of her, grinning.

“You two have no fuckin’ appreciation for art,” she said, and leaned in to wipe the cheesecake off Aisha’s nose for a finger. “That was the greatest thing you’ve ever seen and you know it.”

“It sure was something,” Aisha gasped, shaking her head. “God, that was some amazing shit.

“Fuck yeah,” Johnny agreed, curling his arm around Aisha. “Never fuckin’ change, Cass.”

**

Another few hours later, they’d made it through most of a case of beer and a bag of chips; Cass had found her pants again but not really bothered with her shirt, and Johnny and Aisha had both kicked off their shoes. The music had gotten cranked up and turned back down, Cass was sprawled out on the floor in front of the couch, and Johnny had been running his hand in little circles across Aisha’s back for the last hour. As Cass toyed with her tie, he leaned in, kissing Aisha’s cheek, her throat, the side of her neck.

“And so I told him…” Aisha trailed off, eyes fixed on a distant point as Johnny’s mouth fixed at a point below her ear. “I told him – ahhh. _Johnny._ ” She shoved at him; he grumbled something indistinct, pulling back about an inch.

“Nah, don’t stop for me,” Cass said, pulling herself up. “Lemme just find my coat, like I said, bedsheets’re fresh…”

“Nah,” Aisha breathed. “It’s fine.”

“Eesh,” Cass laughed, tweaking the end of a cornrow, “it’s been real, but I’m starting to think I should either clear outta here or join more of the party than you maybe want me to, y’know what I’m saying?”

“Who says we don’t want you to?”

Aisha said it like a dare, eyes fixed on Cass; she caught her breath. Johnny went staggeringly still.

“Eesh,” he breathed. “You sure?”

“What, like you don’t want her?” Aisha asked, turning her heat. It was a soft, low sound, her lips brushing his ear; it was quiet enough, down here, for Cass to hear it. “It’s okay, babe. I do too.”

“Well, shit,” Cass breathed, and dropped back to her knees, leaning in. Johnny kissed her first, Aisha pulling her in by the wrists, eager and sure.

**

“Well, damn,” Aisha murmured, hours later, curling into the pillows of Cass’s bed. Johnny was curled around her from behind, her head nestled against his shoulder; her arm was looped around Cass’s waist. “You better make it to our house for dinner more often.”

“Fuck yeah,” Johnny mumbled, eyes closed. Cass laughed, watching them: her two best friends, snuggled up together in her bed with her, all of them a mess of cooling sweat and happiness. This was easily the greatest thing to ever happen, and she made awesome happen every day.

“I sure will,” she promised. “I sure will.”


End file.
